McLaren boss Andrea Stella says that far from being upset with Lando Norris’ initial refusal to follow instructions from the pit wall and let his team mate past for victory on Sunday, he would have been “very concerned” had the Brit simply waved Oscar Piastri through without a word of complaint.
Pole-sitter Norris dropped behind team mate Oscar Piastri when Sunday’s encounter at the Hungaroring got under way, with the Australian managing to build a comfortable advantage and maintain the lead through the opening round of pit stops.
READ MORE > MONDAY MORNING DEBRIEF: Why did McLaren pit Norris before Piastri – and did they really need to?
However, with McLaren later feeling threatened by the power of the undercut from cars behind, they elected to bring Norris in for fresh tyres before Piastri during the second sequence of stops – leading to the two cars swapping positions given the pace offset.
Piastri was told by his race engineer not to worry about the development, with Norris being asked to move aside and relinquish P1 given that he had gained it in the pit lane, only for the Briton to initially question the call and show some reluctance.
Eventually, via several pleas from engineer Will Joseph that included being reminded about McLaren’s pre-race meetings, Norris backed off and allowed Piastri through, but it was a moment that sparked plenty of debate amongst onlookers.
